


Across the Universe Divide

by Stormwind13



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen, Not to be taken seriously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-14 05:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5731474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormwind13/pseuds/Stormwind13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren quits the First Order to become a smuggler.</p><p>But first, he steals a rather nice ship and two stormtroopers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Or with us you will ride

**Author's Note:**

> Right, so I saw a prompt on the Dreamwidth kinkmeme that was basically "Kylo Ren quits and becomes a smuggler". Unfortunately, I don't remember where in the kinkmeme it was or even what round it was (sorry) so if someone does know, let me know so i can link back to it. 
> 
> Also, there are Daemons.

Kylo wasn’t sure _when_ the idea came to him – it was at some point between getting beat by the scavenger girl (he honestly wasn’t sure he even knew what her name _was_. It hadn’t exactly come up) and being found by Hux and his stormtroopers.

_I should be a smuggler._

He immediately dismissed it, but once he was trapped in the medical center with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling while Jobal hovered over him, worry echoing through their bond, he gave it more serious consideration. After all, what were enforced bedrests for, if not fanciful musings?

“It’s a terrible idea.” Jobal muttered as she curled herself into the space between his shoulder and neck. “Let’s do it immediately.”

Kylo sighed and ignored her.

Except…. Well, as the days passed and he was kept on bedrest (apparently running around with abdominal wounds strained even the limits of first class medical technology, who would have guessed?) the idea was growing more attractive.

“We’ll need a ship.” Jobal announced, hopping up onto his bed after the medical droids had powered down for the night. She waited and when he ignored her (because they were not quitting to become smugglers, _that was a terrible idea_ ) she jumped and landed on his chest, digging stubby claws into his hospital gown.

“We need a crew.” He said finally because apparently they were actually entertaining the idea but honestly, they couldn’t be smugglers on their own. That way lay terrible decisions and ending up like his father. (He very carefully did not think about the last week or so. He wasn’t ready to deal with that particular emotional, guilt ridden minefield at the moment)

Jobal nodded. “I know. Which is why we’re stealing some of the troopers.”

Which… Kylo turned the idea over in his mind. Surely FN-2187 couldn’t be the only stormtrooper that would rather not be a stormtrooper… He sighed. He was going to actually have to find them, which he meant that he was going to need access to the personnel files and look and see if there were any other troopers with annotations similar to FN-2187’s in their file that had yet to be sent to reconditioning.

“Fine.” He snapped. As though Jobal was going to end up getting anything but her way.

“You find a crew. _I_ will find a ship.” She didn’t have to sound so unbearably smug about the whole thing though.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It took Kylo a week to locate two suitable troopers: TX-1138, who was fresh from the training camps and already slated for reconditioning for being emotionally compromised, and JB-007, who was so weak minded that the scavenger girl (who he still had no idea of her name, but it had to be less syllables than ‘the scavenger girl’) had been able to use mind tricks on him. Both were slated for reconditioning by the end of the week and he thought that both would be amendable to _not_ being reconditioned.

Except he was slightly at a loss as to how to approach them.

So he didn’t. He waited until the last possible day, before the Finalizer was ready to make the last jump into the Unknown Regions and then simply ordered the two troopers in question to accompany him. He ignored the fear from the both of them (better to deal with that later, when they weren’t trapped on a ship with an entire military _that he was planning to desert from_ ) and swiftly led the way to the hanger that Jobal assured him held “the absolutely perfect ship, you’ll love it”.

So he was entirely unsurprised when he did not, in fact, love the ship.

“This is not a ship suitable for a crew of three.” He hissed, staring at the Corellian ship in horror. It looked like one of the senatorial corvettes and that meant it needed a crew of at least… (He had to rack his brain for the number and finally settled on somewhere around six. Probably) but it didn’t matter because it was more people than he had just commandeered. He took a breath and let it out, releasing his anger like he’d learned

(more years ago than he cared to think about, but embracing that anger now wouldn’t serve his ultimate goal, which was to leave with as much speed as possible)

And started moving forward, flanked by both JB-007 and TN-1138 who were radiating equal amounts trepidation and confusion, which was grating on his nerves but was something to, again, deal with later. Jobal just sniffed haughtily and bounded up the ramp, leaving him to follow or not. As if that had ever been a question.

“You.” TX-1138 had been extensively trained in several different classes of ship before being assigned to the Finalizer. “Get this ship started.”

The trooper squeaked before snapping off a hasty salute and almost scurrying towards the cockpit, her Daemon following quickly. Kylo turned back to JB-007. “We’re deserting. Do you have any objections to that?”

If he did, Kylo was fully prepared to snap his neck and space him once they were far enough from the Finalizer, but he could at least see where one of his crew stood on the issue before they departed. Better to know how many new crew he was going to have to locate later now, as opposed to once they were in hyperspace.

JB-007 was silent, but JB-007-D twitched in agitation before hopping up on the man’s shoulder. It was a small mammal of some sort, meaning the trooper had been slated for the Intelligence Corps before being reassigned to general stormtrooper duty. A moment as the Daemon hissed into JB-007’s ear, but Kylo waited patiently, listening idly as the engines began to hum and _feeling_ the agitation in the hanger and nearby areas rise as the general personnel realized that something wasn’t right.

“No sir.” JB-007 shifted slightly. “May I ask why me?”

“You may.” Kylo turned and strode towards the cockpit – he might be awful as actually piloting anything on his own, but he could at least see if TX-1138 needed any help. So long as someone told him what to flip, he would be fine.

TX-1138 had her helmet off when he arrived at the cockpit, her Daemon (some sort of canine type animal, lean and with enough sharp teeth that Kylo knew that she’d been slated for the general troops from the start) lying under the console facing the door. It started to rise as he entered the area, but dropped back down when JB-007-D hopped on top of it.

“What else needs to be done that you can’t do without help?” Kylo dropped into the co-pilot’s seat as JB-007 sat in the bucket seat and removed his own helmet. Kylo scanned the controls, spotting several that he recognized from the old Alderaan cruisers that his mother had used to travel back and forth from New Alderaan.

“Nothing at the moment, sir, I’m familiar enough with the controls to perform take-off procedures on my own.” TX-1138 barely paid him any attention. “But if you could start inputting the hyperspace coordinates so that we can make the jump as soon as possible after exiting the hanger, that would be the most helpful.”

Kylo blinked. He actually hadn’t given much thought to _where_ he was going to go after this, beyond away. He grimly turned to the navi-computer and began to input coordinates, letting the Force guide his choices, not reaching for any particular aspect of it, so he was somewhat surprised when they _both_ responded to him. But there wasn’t any time to really think about that, because he could hear alarms starting to blare from outside their ship.

And that meant time was up.

Kylo winced as shots impacted off the shields, but the ship was finally moving, rising smoothly before shooting out of the hanger doors towards the stars.

“Sir, it will take thirty seconds before we can jump to hyperspace.” TX-1138 managed to get out through her fear (it was starting to give Kylo a headache, but he supposed he couldn’t blame her), “ _Why are they shooting at us?_ ”

“We’re deserting.”

“ _We’re what?!”_ TX-1138’s voice rose in pitch and really, no wonder she had been up for reconditioning, her emotional control was appalling.

“Deserting.” Kylo repeated impatiently. “I’m quitting and since you’re both scheduled to be reconditioned, I picked you to come with me.”

“Out of the goodness of your heart?” JB-007 sounded skeptical.

Kylo snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous, I needed at least two people to help fly a ship that had enough fuel, supplies and room to make it to the Outer Rim.”

That seemed to settle the older stormtrooper who leaned back into his seat as though he didn’t have any more questions. Which he might not – the First Order didn’t do things without expecting something in return and now that the trooper knew what the expected exchange was, his world view was undisturbed.

“Oh. Right.” TX-1138 took a breath. “Going to hyperspace in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…”

Jobal gave a small yip of excitement as the stars elongated and then they snapped forward.

“We did it!” She whispered in his ear, practically quivering in happiness. “We’re free.”

And yes, he supposed they were.

For the moment anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JB-007 and TX-1138 get names! And they all get a (probably legal) job!

Freedom, as it turns out, looks an awful lot like Corellia.

“Well.” Jobal surveys the port that they’ve landed in with the disdainful air of someone that realizes that they are about to endue something that is both unpleasant and also unavoidable. “We need clothes.”

Kylo automatically looks down at his clothes (black robes, black under suit, black boots) and then over at JB-007 and TX-1138 (stormtrooper armor) before he sighs. She’s not wrong, is the thing.

“Sir.” JB-007 is standing two steps behind and to the left, leaving Kylo room to go for the lightsaber if he needs to. “We’ll need names. Civilians don’t understand numbers.”

Especially not civilians on an officially neutral world.

(Corellia is not neutral. No system with an active Jedi temple can ever be considered neutral, even if the Jedi in question never leave the system)

“You were intelligence.” Kylo hopes that he’s remembering this correctly. “Pick one of the cover names that you were allowed to use. TX-1138 and I will come up with something.”

JB-007 tilted his head to the side for a moment before deciding, “Dymtrus. And my Daemon is Benas.”

“Alright.” Kylo took a breath and thought over their options. “We will need clothing, food, and both navigator and a client. Is that within your specialization?”

JB – 007, no, Dymtrus, nods sharply before he disappears into the crowds and Kylo retreats back to the ship, pulling TX-1138 with him. He has no desire to wander the port now, not when his equilibrium was so precarious.

(He hasn’t had to exercise more than superficial control over his temper in almost fifteen years. He’s not looking forward to having to relearn self-control)

“Sir…” TX-1138 cringes back when he turns to her and he resists the urge to truly give her to cringe about. Jobal gives him and evil look and hops up onto the girl’s shoulder, trilling softly.TX-1138 takes a breath and continues, “Sir, I’d like to request a name.”

Kylo stares at her. She wanted a name…. He scrambles to try and remember if there was any sort of protocol for giving a stormtrooper a name but can’t call anything to mind – he had very little to do with any of the workings and regulations of the general troops. But clearly TX-1138 expected him to take that responsibility.

Jobal sighs (at him, he’s fairly sure) and launches herself across the space between them to land on his shoulder, wrapping her tail around his neck and balancing herself on his shoulder. “Mazicia.” She murmurs in his ear and he frowns, the name floating on the edge of memory – he’s heard that name before, even if he can’t recall where.

He opens his mouth to disagree (the name is _his_ , he thinks, somewhere in the back of his mind) but stops. He’s responsible now, for these stormtroopers, so giving the name to TX-1138 still means, that in a way, the name still belongs to him.

“Mazicia.”

T- Mazicia mouths the word to herself before nodding, a slight smile on her face as her own daemon briefly presses against Kylo’s leg before moving back over to her.

“And Kir.” Kylo has no idea where that name came from, but Kir seems pleased enough and that’s what’s important.

“You can call me….” He pauses, because he _can’t_ be Kylo. Not anymore. But he _won’t_ be Ben Solo. He hasn’t been Ben Solo in nearly fifteen years and he’s not sure that that boy hadn’t died with the rest of the potential Jedi. “…Just call me Owen, for now.”  

It isn’t his name and doesn’t sit well – from what little he remembers, Owen Lars was a hard-working, dependable man that didn’t believe in either the Force or fate and disliked the Jedi in general and Obi Wan Kenobi in particular.

“ _I_ ,” Jobal announces from his shoulder, “am Jobal.”

“Owen. Jobal.” Mazicia tries the names out before shifting slightly – nervous, but now not as scared. “Do you think we ought to examine the ship? To make sure that we can’t be followed?”

It makes sense and they do – the ship has been configured for the maximum amount of crew and cargo space, for which Kylo is thankful. If the ship had been configured for the maximum passengers, they would have had to sell it and that would have been one more obstacle to deal with.

While he examined the cargo holds and referenced the holonet to see what type of cargo they could hold, Mazicia took several of the ship’s droids and began searching for internal and external trackers (Dymtrus would go over it again when he returned, but it kept the young woman busy and allowed Kylo time alone to work on his shields. It wouldn’t do to have the Corellian Jedi swarm over them looking for a Sith and if they did, Kylo wasn’t sure the Grandmaster of the Order wouldn’t recognize him)

Jobal leaves him at some point to explore the ship herself, squeezing into ducts and vent work, looking for smuggler’s spaces and potential smuggler’s spaces. He can feel her contentment, in a way he hasn’t in years, and it’s… its nice, if unfamiliar and strange. They haven’t had much cause to be content for many, many years.

Dymtrus returns with clothes and a potential client, but no engineer which is frustrating.

(Kylo restrains himself from doing anything destructive – they don’t have enough money to afford massive repairs. They might not ever)

“It’s medical supplies and food that need to go to Taris. A milk run.” Dymtrus shrugged. “We manage this, he says we’ll have regular work.”

“ _If_ we manage this.” Kylo repeats. Any job that starts with the word if is not particularly a job you want to take. But it’s not like they have many options at the moment.

(Kylo ignores Jobal’s disapproval. He _knows_ that there is another option. He isn’t prepared to deal with the look in his mother’s eyes or the sheer amount of _effort_ that actually surrendering to the Resistance (or have the Republic finally acknowledged them, now that they can no longer hide from how dangerous the Imperial Remnant is) would entail)

“It was the fairest offer I could find.” Dymtrus barely manages to conceal his irritation at what he probably considers a poor job. Kylo ignores it.

“Then we'll go to Taris.” Kylo confirms. “This shouldn’t be overly difficult.”


End file.
